I have developed "tennis elbow" from lugging this book around the past four weeks, but it is worth the pain, the effort, and the aspirin. It is also worth the (relatively speaking) bargain price. Including appendixes, this book contains 894 pages of text. The entire panorama of the neural sciences is surveyed and examined, and it is comprehensive in its scope, from genomes to social behaviors. The editors explicitly state that the book is designed as "an introductory text for students of biology, behavior, and medicine," but it is hard to imagine any audience, interested in any fragment of neuroscience at any level of sophistication, that would not enjoy this book. The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or

Principles of Neural Science

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/201/4359/899.2.full.pdf

Phenomenology of perception.

The detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire

1980 Preface * 1999 Preface * 1999 Acknowledgements * Introduction * 1 Circular Logic * 2 Phase Singularities (Screwy Results of Circular Logic) * 3 The Rules of the Ring * 4 Ring Populations * 5 Getting Off the Ring * 6 Attracting Cycles and Isochrons * 7 Measuring the Trajectories of a Circadian Clock * 8 Populations of Attractor Cycle Oscillators * 9 Excitable Kinetics and Excitable Media * 10 The Varieties of Phaseless Experience: In Which the Geometrical Orderliness of Rhythmic Organization Breaks Down in Diverse Ways * 11 The Firefly Machine 12 Energy Metabolism in Cells * 13 The Malonic Acid Reagent ('Sodium Geometrate') * 14 Electrical Rhythmicity and Excitability in Cell Membranes * 15 The Aggregation of Slime Mold Amoebae * 16 Numerical Organizing Centers * 17 Electrical Singular Filaments in the Heart Wall * 18 Pattern Formation in the Fungi * 19 Circadian Rhythms in General * 20 The Circadian Clocks of Insect Eclosion * 21 The Flower of Kalanchoe * 22 The Cell Mitotic Cycle * 23 The Female Cycle * References * Index of Names * Index of Subjects

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/596B270197FE27DE5FABB598B6210622/S0025557200150892a.pdf/div-class-title-span-class-italic-the-geometry-of-biological-time-span-by-a-t-winfree-pp-544-dm68-corrected-second-printing-1990-isbn-3-540-52528-9-springer-div.pdf

The geometry of biological time , by A. T. Winfree. Pp 544. DM68. Corrected Second Printing 1990. ISBN 3-540-52528-9 (Springer)

The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory

Summary It has become increasingly recognized that the major functional deficits following brain damage are largely due to 'negative' features such as weakness and loss of dexterity rather than spasticity. A variety of studies suggest that spasticity is a distinct problem and separate from the loss of dexterity, but that it may be implicated in the formation of muscle contracture and even in the recovery of strength. In order to address these issues, we examined the relationship between spasticity, contracture, strength and dexterity in the affected upper limb following stroke. Spasticity was measured both as increased tonic stretch reflexes and increased resistance to passive stretch (hypertonia). Twenty-four patients were recruited non-selectively from three rehabilitation units within 13 months of their stroke. Few patients exhibited increased tonic reflexes but half were found to have muscle contracture, the earliest at 2 months following stroke. Hypertonia was associated with contracture but not with reflex hyperexcitability. Increased tonic stretch reflexes were observed only in a subgroup of those with contracture and where present could usually be elicited only at the end of muscle range. This finding suggests that instead of spasticity causing contracture, contracture may actually potentiate spasticity in some patients. However, the majority of patients with contracture did not have increased tonic stretch reflexes. In addition, we found no relationship between spasticity and either weakness or loss of dexterity. Therefore, while hypertonia remains an important problem following cerebral lesions, it would appear that the amount of attention directed to reflex hyperexcitability associated with spasticity is out of proportion with its effects. Consequently, hypertonia needs to be clearly distinguished from reflex hyperexcitability in patients with spasticity.

/pdf/spasticity-and-muscle-contracture-following-stroke-1it4oyfdbx.pdf

Spasticity and muscle contracture following stroke

There is evidence that transmission of the vibration wave set up by percussion in human subjects is responsible for reflex 'spread' or 'irradiation' (Lance and de Gail, 1965). The afferent pathway for reflex contraction of muscles involved in the irradiated response originates in the muscles concerned, and the latency of such a reflex is consistent with the propagated vibration wave being the adequate stimulus. The inference that muscle spindles are responsive to vibratory stimuli is supported by animal experimentation (Echlin and Fessard, 1938; Granit and Henatsch, 1956; Bianconi and Van der Meulen, 1963). During the course of investigation of the spread of reflexes, an attempt to initiate phasic reflexes by applying a mechanical vibrator to muscle was unsuccessful, probably because the stimulus was not of sufficient brevity or intensity to produce a synchronous afferent volley. However, two interesting observations were made concerning the effect ofmore prolonged vibration. Mechanically elicited phasic reflexes (tendon jerks) were found to be depressed while the vibrator was applied to the appropriate muscle, and, in most instances, a gradual involuntary contraction developed in the muscle vibrated. A preliminary report of these findings was presented at the annual meeting of the Australian Association of Neurologists in 1964 (Lance, 1965). It has recently come to our notice that Hagbarth and Eklund have been investigating tonic contraction of muscle evoked by vibration of tendon (Eccles, personal communication) and reported the results to the first Nobel symposium in Stockholm in 1964 (Hagbarth and Eklund, 1965). The present paper analyses the phenomena of phasic reflex depression and tonic contraction produced by vibration of muscle.

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/29/1/1.full.pdf

Differential effects on tonic and phasic reflex mechanisms produced by vibration of muscles in man.

In cats, the monosynaptic reflex (MSR) elicited from L7 or S1 dorsal roots, or from the tibial nerve (H reflex) was suppressed by vibration at 50-500 c/s of the hind limb with innervation intact. The MSR was not suppressed by selective vibration of cutaneous receptors, and suppression was still observed after the hind limb was skinned. In contrast, the phenomenon disappeared when all muscle nerves were crushed.

Suppression of the MSR by vibration was shown to be mediated by presynaptic inhibition by the following methods: correlation with onset of the dorsal root potential (DRP) evoked by vibration, and abolition of both DRP and reflex suppression by picrotoxin; demonstration of primary afferent depolarization and normal excitability of motoneurones to direct stimulation.

Reasons are given for deducing that the muscle afferent fibres responsible for the presynaptic inhibition induced by vibration are group Ia rather than groups Ib or II, or afferent fibres from Pacinian corpuscles.

Presynaptic inhibition of the monosynaptic reflex by vibration

This paper concerns the use of tracking studies to test a theoretical account of the information processing performed by the human CNS during control of movement. The theory provides a bridge between studies of reaction time and continuous tracking. It is proposed that the human CNS includes neuronal circuitry to compute inverse internal models of the multiple input, multiple output, dynamic, nonlinear relationships between outgoing motor commands and their resulting perceptual consequences. The inverse internal models are employed during movement execution to transform preplanned trajectories of desired perceptual consequences into appropriate outgoing motor commands to achieve them. A finite interval of time is required by the CNS to preplan the desired perceptual consequences of a movement and it does not commence planning a new movement until planning of the old one has been completed. This behavior introduces intermittency into the planning of movements. In this paper we show that the gain and phase frequency response characteristics of the human operator in a visual pursuit tracking task can be derived theoretically from these assumptions. By incorporating the effects of internal model inaccuracy and of speed-accuracy trade-off in performance, it is shown that various aspects of experimentally measured tracking behavior can be accounted for.

Internal models and intermittency: A theoretical account of human tracking behavior

Skilled movements of any sort require the assumption of an appropriate posture. Most skilled movements comprise rapid, repetitive, alternating and coordinated activity, chiefly of distal muscles. Most postures demand constant sustained activity chiefly of proximal muscles and flexor groups in the upper limb and extensor groups in the lower limb. These functions of voluntary movement, designated respectively as phasic and tonic, have their counterparts in reflex action. The tendon jerk (or its reflex equivalent elicited by electrical stimulation of afferent fibres) results from a neural discharge so brief as to be classified as a phasic response, while the maintained reflex contraction elicited by more prolonged muscle stretch in a suitably tense subject or a spastic patient has the duration of a tonic response. It is of considerable interest to know whether there are two different populations of alpha motor neurones in the anterior horns of the spinal cord, each with separate characteristics, and each innervating a particular type of muscle fibre, or whether a particular cell might alter its properties depending upon the manner of its activation and the prevailing influence of other cells upon it. By recording from single efferent fibres of the ventral nerve roots of decerebrate cats, Granit, Henatsch, and Steg (1956) were able to divide motor neurone responses fairly clearly into two categories. Motor neurones, which discharged once or twice on the rising phase of the stretch stimulus, did not continue to discharge during sustained stretch, and were not affected by a preceding afferent tetanus, were classified as phasic (53 out of 100 motor fibres studied). Motor neurones whose activity continued during the plateau of stretch and was greatly increased by preliminary tetanization were classified as tonic (found in 44 out of 100 fibres). Three fibres fired continuously during sustained stretch with or without a conditioning afferent tetanus. It was noted that small spike potentials were usually those of tonic cells and the larger potentials were associated with phasic responses. Granit, Phillips,

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/jnnp/29/6/535.full.pdf

Peter D. Neilson

Papers

Spasticity and muscle contracture following stroke

Differential effects on tonic and phasic reflex mechanisms produced by vibration of muscles in man.

Presynaptic inhibition of the monosynaptic reflex by vibration

Internal models and intermittency: A theoretical account of human tracking behavior

Tonic and phasic spinal cord mechanisms in man